Normal times in an abnormal country

The government’s violent ways of preparing for next year’s election

THE country has returned to normal after the two-day strike that more or less shut it down at the beginning of the month. But what passes for normal in Zimbabwe these days is pretty weird. Cars, queuing for petrol, snake slowly through the cities, Robert Mugabe's supporters threaten factories with violence and army units beat up people in Harare's townships. Farm occupations continue (more than 5,000 farms, representing over 90% of all white-owned farms, have now been designated for seizure), and farm owners and their workers continue to be attacked. Opposition activists are beaten, murdered or sometimes just disappear.

The strike was ostensibly a protest at the government's decision to raise the price of fuel by 73%. It was also a huge demonstration of the public's feelings towards Mr Mugabe and his regime. The question being asked everywhere is “How can we get rid of Mugabe?”

With difficulty, is the answer. The strike, though successful in bringing everything to a stop, highlighted the limits of this sort of action: the regime was not directly threatened by workers staying home for two days. Now the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions says it will give the government one last chance to negotiate the fuel-price rise. If it does not respond favourably, say the unions, they will go on indefinite strike for a “final onslaught”. Yet it seems highly improbable that the labour movement will be able to muster the strength to bring the government down.

The main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), is criticised for not having a strategy to topple the regime. Comparing Zimbabwe to Serbia, dissidents speculate whether the Mugabe era could not be brought to an end by massing people in the streets of Harare as people were massed in the streets of Belgrade last year. But first there have to be elections. The MDC is determined that change should come about through constitutional means. The opposition has fixed its sights on the presidential election, due in April 2002, as the chance to defeat Mr Mugabe and restore democracy.

Mr Mugabe, too, has begun campaigning for the election. His “war veterans” roam cities and farms, meting out violence to anyone viewed as opposition. His police chief says he will dismiss any officer who backs the opposition. The intimidation of the MDC has increased, with raids, based on spurious charges, on homes and offices of opposition members of parliament. An MDC official, Paul Themba Nyathi, was forced off the road this week in what looked like an assassination attempt disguised as a car accident.

Yet the MDC believes that, even with government fraud at the polls, it can still defeat Mr Mugabe next year. Morgan Tsvangirai, the party's president, has called on the outside world to take steps now to support his country's democracy. Pointing out that the campaign period is as crucial as the actual vote, he has called for the extensive deployment of foreign observers, both for the presidential poll and for parliamentary by-elections.

The opposition also recognises the need for voter-education programmes to assure people, especially in the countryside, that the vote is secret. But the government finds this idea so threatening that it has given warning that it will ban any church groups or non-governmental organisations from carrying out civic-education campaigns.

Another pre-election issue is food relief. At last admitting that it will have to import food, the government has sent messages to potential donors that it will need relief—blaming droughts and floods, not, of course, its own disastrous agricultural policies. But the MDC is calling for all relief to be distributed by non-governmental organisations to prevent the ruling ZANU-PF party from using food as a campaign tool.

Other Zimbabweans are looking further ahead. Human-rights workers are grimly compiling dossiers on beatings, torture, murder and disappearances in the hope that, once Mr Mugabe and his henchmen are voted out of power, they may find themselves standing trial.